Tina Titmus

Well, you just could not find a more annoying person than Tina Titmus. For as long as Chubbly could remember she had been there right behind him, almost every day of his life, pestering the living daylights out of him. Chubbly had named her Tina ‘tenacious’ Titmus! She always had to be correct every single time, even when more often than not, she wasn’t. Tina always had to be better than everyone else, as second place was just not her style. Poor Chubbly has suffered her for too many years. She really didn’t need to say much at all to wind him up to the point of explosion. Far too frequently she made Chubbly’s blood boil. Trying to explain anything to her was just a waste of time, and explaining the reason why she wasn’t correct just fell upon deaf ears. When Chubbly started his first primary school, there she was, sat right behind him on one of those little chairs pushed under a small coloured wooden table, dressed in those same silly denim dungarees, the style that she still wore to this day. Even then her long shiny black hair was plaited into two enormous great Catherine Wheels, which looked as though they were stapled to either side of her head, (probably the very reason she couldn’t hear a thing!)

She even wore that same metal brace, which she still continued to wear to this very day. Why she even bothered to wear it was beyond Chubbly, the dental treatment must have cost her parents a fortune, and Tina’s teeth, both top and bottom, still protruded as much today as they did nearly nine years ago. In fact it’s quite possible that they even stick out a little further today than they did back then, thought Chubbly.

There was no doubting that Tina Titmus was indeed a very clever girl, but unfortunately she had always used her cleverness in the most sneaky and crafty ways possible. In other words, for Tina there just weren’t any rules to play by, and if things could be cleverly twisted in order to make her appear the best, then she had become the master of manipulation.Continuing with this kind of behaviour made Tina a pretty lonely girl, and it soon became apparent that when it came to friends, Tina had very few.

 Mac and Aggie Mc Dougal

Chubbly thought that if every couple on earth were half as nice as this wonderful pair, then the world would almost certainly be a much happier place to live in.Once you had become accustomed to their heavy Scottish Highland accent, in a very short time all conversation became as clear as water. Mac was a truly experienced aviation engineer; there was no taking it away from him. He had a wildly growing beard, and a crazy way of dressing, and was genuinely scruffy by appearance. Always dressed for work in his overhalls, wellie boots (big toes protruding), some kind of fishing hat, and a spotted red and white cravat. Mac’s complexion had certainly been crafted by the outdoor elements of the Scottish Highlands; his skin not only looked, but felt as rough as course sand paper.

Physically he would of looked more at home working on farming machinery, combine harvesters, tractors and alike, than he did working on something as technical as an aero plane.

Mac and Aggie lived in a lovely two storey wooden cabin, constructed of large circular cedar logs and set back in amongst tall surrounding pine trees brimming with gigantic crackling fir cones. It was positioned on top of a hill about two and a half miles from Oban airport.

The log cabin looked down over the bay, and for as far as the eye could see ,with the dark green frothy seas of the cold and stormy Atlantic Ocean beyond. Aggie a well built lady spent most of her time looking after and pampering her beloved husband. She had big rosy jolly looking face, long graying hair worn in a ponytail, and normally dressed in a chequered pinafore, red slippers, and smelling of freshly baked oatcakes. She was undoubtedly one of Scotland’s undiscovered ‘super cooks’ continually testing and baking her new recipes. It was obvious from Mac’s overly protruding stomach that he was Aggies’s unique testing guinea pig for all of her new works of gastronomical art, prepared and served directly from their very own kitchen.

Chubbly's mum Polly

Chubbly’s mum, Polly, was a small lady who always dressed immaculately. She had long, red hair, which she always wore in a plait that hung right down to her waist. Polly’s features were all small, and her pale skin was covered with hundreds of tiny freckles. She had large opal-coloured eyes, a little turned-up nose, and thin, dark crimson lips.

But, just because Polly was a very petite lady didn’t mean that she ever went unnoticed: her positive attitude and confident nature made her one of the most popular and likeable ladies and, with her great self-esteem and a high IQ of over one-hundred-and-twenty (where Chubbly had clearly got his well above-average intelligence), she was a diamond through and through.

His mum didn’t go out to work and strongly insisted that she worked much harder in their home: she kept things impeccable, in order, clean, and exactly as she thought her family home should be.

Chubbly's dad George

George was a very bubbly character indeed and who was, to put it rather politely, rather plump. When his dad wore his chef’s uniform, he became the perfect picture of exactly how a chef should look — in Chubbly’s opinion — with his round, paunch tummy bursting through his apron. He had a large, jolly face, very rosy cheeks, and a small moustache that wasn’t much wider than his little round nose.

His tummy was, like any good chef, a living testament to how much he enjoyed each and every gastronomic delight that was ever placed in front of him. George worked in the huge catering section at London’s Heathrow airport. He cooked all different types of food for the hundreds of outbound aircraft and their thousands of hungry passengers, so it came as absolutely no surprise that Chubbly's dad also spent a lot of time sampling his fine recipes. In fact as he cooked throughout the day, he normally had the opportunity to taste well over five hundred different meals.

Chubbly's best friend, Granddad Curly.

Always dressed in a suit and wearing a silk cravat, Granddad Curly was a tall man with wild-growing, grey curly hair. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so thick on top anymore. This meant that he had to wear a cap whenever the sun was out, preventing his bald patch from burning. He had a long nose which provided a steady perch for his heavy, black-framed glasses, which just about covered his big black bushy eyebrows.

For many years, he had a beautiful curly handlebar moustache. Chubbly wished he could grow one just like it someday. Granddad Curly’s hands were also huge — the size of a bunch of bananas, as such. This gave the impression that anything he held was tiny, and his ears seemed to be much longer than average. Chubbly thought they must have been really difficult to fit inside his pilot’s headset when he was flying all those years ago. Still, as big and tall a man as he was, Granddad Curly’s voice, though deep, was always quietly spoken; a gentleman who was always clear in what he said.

He had a wonderful way of describing things perfectly, and all without the aid of pictures, photographs or plans — and without the ‘dreaded computer’, as he would say! As far as he was concerned, the whole world would be far better off without ‘electronic excuses’. Chubbly thought he had a very good point, actually, as whenever they failed to function; everything would come to a complete standstill. People would still refer to them as the most wonderful invention in the modern age and, having thought about this, Chubbly knew that computers were here to stay. Besides, both he and Granddad Curly had clocked up hundreds of hours on flight simulator programs, so they were of some use, at least.

Granddad Curly had, for as long Chubbly could remember, always been a bit of an inventor. He could never stop designing and thinking up new inventions — even evolving old ones. His latest idea was a carpet slipper pre-heating device: the device got your slippers up to just the right temperature before you put them on. Last year’s great invention was a conveyor system: the contraption collected fresh eggs directly from Granddad Curly’s very own chicken coop on the other side of the allotment at the back of his house, and then deposited them, one by one, onto a specially designed shelf inside his kitchen pantry. Granddad Curly had flown in the good old days of the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) before retiring. He had considered BOAC a much more refined and professional company than British Airways are today.

Colonel Smithenbottom

To one side of Chubbly’s bungalow lived retired Colonel Archibald Victor Smithenbottom. He was a once great soldier in the British army. Unfortunately, however, Archibald was now just a frail, withered, crooked old man who would rarely venture out of his house. When he did actually leave his home, it would normally only be to visit the hospital. He had just a few white wiry hairs left on his smooth, round head, and skin so wrinkly it was difficult to see any of Archibald’s features.

In fact, to imagine just how he looked in his younger days was now almost impossible. Furthermore, whether it was due to all the loud gunfire in the army or just old age, he was also completely deaf, as well as vision-impaired.

This meant that the poor old man could see and hear very little these days, but, with the help of his neighbours, Archibald was always cared for: Chubbly’s mum would make several visits throughout each day to check on Archibald — or Arch, as he was fondly known by Chubbly’s family. She would always make sure that he was comfortable and had all he needed.

            'D'

On the other side of Chubbly’s bungalow lived an old spinster named Deirdre. Chubbly had never found out her surname, as his mum, dad and Granddad Curly would simply call her ‘D’.

She could be best described as a short, plump lady with ‘big hair’; that was to say, her hair measured almost half of her own body height again! This was made even more pronounced by the constant purple-blue rinse she (willingly) wore: she looked uncannily like Marge Simpson! Yes, that was most certainly it: she could undoubtedly be easily mistaken for Bart Simpson’s mother! D.

Just like their neighbour Archibald, D lived alone — well, apart from her two huge fluffy white Persian cats, Puff and Talcum. She had never married and also didn’t have any children.

Deirdre’s life — and indeed most of her time — was taken up by caring for Talcum and Puff. She would spend her days constantly grooming and unknotting their forever-tangled, long, furry coats.  

The night creature

The night creature lives in the deep, dank, dark, smelly labyrinth of dungeons buried down below the cellars of the Notre Dame. As his name suggests, he will only ever surface during the night. He’s a fierce, short, slimy and boney creature, with not one ounce of bodily fat on him. He’s built only to hunt, resembling a scaly skeleton with two long ears, which over the years have become so matted, twisted and knotted together that they now resemble two devil’s horns. With the blackest piercing eyes, and a smell to make even those with the strongest stomach’s amongst us retch.

He traps his prey with his enormous hands, long green wart ridden fingers and razor sharp claws. Once in their grip, there will be no escape; the poor victim’s life will soon be over. The night creature grunts noisily, twisting and turning like some kind of Tasmanian devil, foaming at the mouth and drooling with excitement by the prey which he has captured. Now all that’s left for them is to feel their skin being pierced, as he slowly sinks his two long ivory yellowy stained fangs deep into their flesh, evacuating the warm blood from their bodies, as their life slowly drifts away and they seep into eternal darkness.

Surfacing on the darkest of nights when the moon is high, shrouded by low and heavy cloud coverage, when there’s dampness in the air that manages to hide the night creatures’ putrid bodily smell, and disgusting foul breath. Only then will he be able to hunt, undisturbed by anything or anyone.

Fortunately for the human race the night creature spends most of his life scrounging for scraps of food, from small mice to huge black succulent furry rats that live in the rotting sewers and corridors of the stinking dungeons way down below the old cathedral. Only during these dark and dank nights has he a much better menu. Stealing leftovers from visitors and holiday makers in the nearby waste bins within the cathedral grounds, allows him a much better selection of discarded food. On some occasions he becomes very lucky indeed, managing to corner a disorientated cat or dog, which unfortunately for them has strayed into the  private hunting ground of the night creature.

Esmerella and Clauden

Esmerella and Clauden had been best friends from the first ten minutes that they spent together after meeting back in 2001. It was purely by coincidence, when Esmerella's mother Irene finally married her long term boyfriend, after loosing the father of Esmerella in a terrible climbing accident in the summer of 1997, just one year after their daughter was born.

Now they had moved out from the hustle and bustle of downtown Paris, and moved to a much more rural area far beyond the outskirts of the great Parisian city. There they had bought a lovely picturesque three hundred year old stone built farmhouse, some 100 kilometres due south of Paris, backing onto the Loire, France’s longest river. As it happened, right alongside their old farm residence was the house of Clauden and his parents. Their small quiet country village of Sury-aux-bois in the Loiret commune in central Northern France was also very close to the beautiful forest area of Orleans. Esmerella’s step father Jacque continued to commute some 200 kilometres a day, five days a week, between their village and his office in downtown Paris.

Her father’s accident had made front page news in every single one of the major French news papers. He had fallen into one of the deepest crevices in the French Alps, and yet unfortunately for the family, his body to this day still undiscovered.

Esmerella like Clauden was very tall for her age, and could easily be mistaken for someone much older. She wore her golden coloured hair at shoulders length, sometimes tied back into a ponytail, her complexion fair and smooth, with not one blemish upon her skin. Her rosy cheeks covered in tiny little freckles, along with big blue eyes gave Esmerella a very pretty face. When she smiled, her little ski-slope nose would crinkle, and turn up at the end. She would most certainly grow up to become one natural beauty, and although  she would probably use make-up of some kind during her lifetime, she certainly didn't need to.

Clauden was a tall thin studious looking boy, with a mop of jet black hair, pale skin, and always wore a selection of fashionably styled glasses in various coloured frames covering his small black beady eyes. Like Esmerella he always dressed smartly, normally in Chinos and a T-shirt, always changing them to colour coordinate with his glasses. He had really fallen for Esmerella from the very first time they met.

They had become very close friends indeed, sharing secrets between them which they would never tell anyone else. Clauden had a very active interest in his own country’s natural history, and convinced himself that this is what he wanted to be, if he was lucky enough to make it to University in Paris, he would study like crazy, eventually becoming a professor of French History, just maybe, one day even teaching at his childhood school .

Quasimodo 

Still living within the dark depths way down below the damp Cathedral basement the old Hunchback who was said to have died way back in the early 15th century was actually still alive. He was fighting hard to get the evil creatures of Notre Dame back into their empty tombs, deep down in the dark, dank, smelly chasms leading off from the maze of Labyrinths below the Cathedral floors.

The unique living person who knew of Quasimodo’s existence was the cathedral’s current Arch Deacon. The secret had been very cleverly kept for nearly five hundred years. Each generation of Notre Dame’s replacement deacon’s were never told about the Hunchback until they took their new position. This privilege was given to them by the previous Arch Deacon whist on his death bed.

In this way, it was only ever known by two people at any one time, and one of whom was shortly due to die. Thus the secret remained intact still to this day. Almost all of Quasimodo’s entire body was covered with big hairy warts. Although absolutely grotesque in appearance, not  helped at all by the two bulging great lumps of loose, dry and horribly scaly skin that protruded between his very wide shoulders, his contact with the human race had finished well over four hundred and fifty years ago, after the tragic loss of his nearest and dearest friend Esmeralda. To say that Quasimodo was shy, was an understatement.

However once befriended and understood, the Hunchback was in fact a fairly friendly and intelligent creature. As you can imagine his skin had become incredibly dry, dirty and very rough over the last fivehundred years without washing. His smell wasn’t too good either, and now left with only two teeth in the middle of his upper jaw, meant that as well as having unbearably bad breath, the poor creature had to suck on his food more than he could bite into it, which of course left his choice of food very limited indeed.